Have you had enough rain yet?

Okay, I know we need rain in the spring to start the growing season but this is going a little overboard don’t you think? It has been raining like crazy for the last day and a half and now they are saying that today is the main event. April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, not wash them into the river.

In our town of Upper Marlboro there is a street with the appropriate name of Water Street. Water Street runs alongside the Prince George’s County Courthouse across a little bridge to the Show Place Arena. We go across that little bridge and through the arena and commuter parking area to go to the gym in the morning. This morning the water in the little creek was just about touching the bottom of the bridge. We’ll be going another way to the gym tomorrow, I’m sure of it.

This is one of those days that I am very happy to be retired. I don’t have to go out in this stuff all day. However, I do have to go out tonight. I have to teach a martial arts class tonight. Getting there in the rain tonight is likely to be an exercise in futility. There is a good chance no one will show up in this mess, we’ll see.

Mother Nature has been nice enough to point out that one of our downspouts is no longer working as advertised. I guess that will be another expense. I will have to get someone to do it. I have absolutely no talent in home improvement and I am also acrophobic, I would never get up there to do the job.

I don’t know what I’m complaining about; we’re only getting a lot of rain. The Midwest and the South are dealing with some nasty tornados. It is terrible to see the destruction that those things can cause. My brother-in-law has been in the watch area down in Alabama. It is a little freaky to think that all you have might be blown away in a few seconds.

Still we are in line for some flooding and that’s no fun. These kinds of storms are a reminder of just how easy it is for nature to ruin our day. We have something like this several years ago in June. I wrote a little poem for that event. I actually put this poem up a couple of months ago but I’m going to put it up again anyway.

A Gray Day

If there was ever a day

that deserved to be gray;

it was that Monday at the end of June.

For it rained and it rained,

and it rained and it rained;

till we thought it was a monsoon.

The roads were all blocked,

and the commuters were shocked;

this had never happened before.

It was six inches of rain;

through the weekend it came,

flooding the roads by the score.

We watched with concern

as other people in turn,

felt the power of nature’s wrath.

We were smug cause it seemed,

with technology supreme;

that nature would not cross our path.

It was not a named storm

that Mother Nature did form,

to give us a gentle reminder.

It was not hard at all,

she just let the rain fall,

and she washed all our smugness behind her.

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Pete is a retired software developer, a writer, and a martial arts instructor. He lives in Maryland with his wife Cathy and they are enjoying their retirement.
Pete is the author of four novels, "The Teacher", 500 Years from Home", and "The Long Journey Home" are available at Lulu.com; and "Pioneers" in available at the Kindle Book Store.